1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an object processing system having an object model and at least one basic tool and a supplementary tool, where the object model has a data structure and an administrative program for the data structure, where the data structure can be accessed by the tools using the administrative program, where the data structure includes a control program which can be executed by a process control unit and can be taken as a basis for the process control unit to control and/or monitor a technical installation using at least one input/output unit, where the data structure contains information about variables used by the process control unit when executing the control program, the storage location of the variables in the process control unit and possibly their links to one another, where the basic tool has read access to an associated subregion of the data structure, where the supplementary tool has read and write access to an associated subregion of the data structure, where the subregions differ from one another at least in part and contain information items which correspond to one another.
2. Description of the Related Art
Object processing systems are known generally. They normally involve the individual tools, independently of one another, accessing models which have a proprietary association with the respective tools. This applies equally to read and write access operations.
On account of the access operations to the individual models being independent of one another, the information items corresponding to one another in the models can be or can become inconsistent with respect to one another. In order to achieve consistency of the information nonetheless, this involves complex implementation of checking passes and mapping mechanisms. Nevertheless, consistency is not always guaranteed for the information items corresponding to one another in the models, or data are lost. The latter is true particularly if the same object is manipulated by a plurality of tools. It may also be necessary for data to be input a plurality of times if the corresponding mapping mechanisms are not available. In addition, the mapping mechanisms need to be programmed.